Animal Crossover
by Mr. 86
Summary: Ai and Yu were just two average people in a little town called Denburg. Then they went bonkers, and in their insanity, they began discovering where those unopenable doors in video games REALLY lead... A collaboration with OliveTwyster.
1. A Curious Compulsion to Open Doors

It was the year 2005. YouTube had just begun.

That year, a black cab pulled into the center of a quaint little town, right at the end of a rainstorm. Its passenger, a girl named Ai, was about to live on her own for the first time. Well, actually, that wasn't quite true. Her roommate, she had been told, had already been there for some time, and they'd be sharing the whole house. Nonetheless, the feeling was quite the same. At least she wouldn't have to do all of the chores herself, though.

"Ah, looks like this rain be lettin' up," the green-skinned cabbie spoke up as the vehicle rolled to a stop. "Welcome to Denburg, Ai."

Ai looked around. A cobblestone path sprawled out a short distance in all directions. The buildings were plain, but they seemed like she could get used to them. There was one thing, however, that she was sure she'd never become accustomed to, and that was the trees.

The pears. Dear God, the pears. They were everywhere. Not a single other fruit to be found. Ai shuddered, hoping she'd find something more appetizing to eat. Not that that would be a huge issue in a seaside town inhabited entirely by talking woodland creatures.

Ai thanked Kapp'n for the ride and waved goodbye as he drove away. As she approached her new home, however, the first of many hiccups in her life plan reared its ugly head.

"Eighteen THOUSAND?! Whaddaya mean, eighteen thousand Bells?!" she yelled at the raccoon-looking creature in front of her.

"Yes, well..." Tom Nook explained, "Your roommate hasn't exactly been quick about paying the rent, hm? And since he doesn't appear to be home, I'll need you to work off some of the debt at my shop."

Ai brought her palm up to her forehead. "When I meet that guy, I swear I'm going to dump ice water on him in his sleep."

* * *

One long tutorial later, Ai ran out of the store, arms raised above her head in wild abandon.

"Ahh... after ten thousand years I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!" She lowered her arms and thought for a moment. "Denburg. Whatever."

"Yeah, good luck with that," a voice said from behind her. Ai turned around and looked up, spying a boy dressed in a ninja outfit standing on the roof of Nook's Cranny.

"How did you just pop up like that?!"

"That's a secret!"

"Who are you, anyway?"

The boy jumped down to look Ai in the... uh, eye. "I'm Yu."

Ai raised an eyebrow. "You can't be me. I'M me. And I'm way prettier than you."

"No, my name is Yu! Y-U!"

"Why me indeed."

"Okay, now I know you're just messing with me."

Ai smiled devilishly. "Well, you stuck me with that gigantic bill, so in return, I decided I was going to give you a hard time about everything forever."

"Relax," Yu urged her. "Trust me, relaxation is the only thing this place really has going for it."

"What do you mean?" Ai asked.

"Denburg's one of those tiny, quirky towns that nobody ever comes to. Like Stepford, but not as creepy. Let me guess: You ran away from home too."

Ai sighed, an oversized sweatdrop appearing on her head. "Pretty much."

"Headed to a bigger city, I bet. That crazy kappa cabbie keeps confusing Denburg and Staggers. ...Hey, I think I just invented a new tongue twister!"

Ai interrupted him. "Actually, I really was headed here. After a while you get sick of helicopters and express trains at three in the morning."

Yu pondered for a moment, then raised a finger to denote he had an idea. "Say, how about we discuss this further over a cup of coffee? The museum has this great cafe in the basement. For some reason."

"Sure, why not?" replied Ai. The two of them began walking toward the museum.

"You know... I think I'm actually going to like it here," Ai spoke up again. Yu made a gesture halfway between a nod and a shrug. "Yep. You really can go forever without getting bored here."

Seven years later, they realized just how wrong that statement truly was.

* * *

"Ohmygodiamsosickofthistown!" Ai grumbled. In this case, Yu had to agree with her.

"Same furniture, same shops, same yearly cycle..." Yu counted his fingers, inasmuch as he could be said to have fingers. "It's like the only thing that changes are the neighbors, and they just get replaced by similar people!"

"And the food!"

"I know! If I have to go another day drinking nothing but coffee-"

"Please, Yu. I vowed when I moved here to go completely bonkers if I had to keep eating pears."

Their contemplation was interrupted by a knock on the door. Yu went over to the door and opened it wide. A white dog girl in a multicolored shirt greeted them.

"Hi there! It's been exactly seven years since you moved in, bow-WOW! I brought you something special to celebrate!"

"Finally something new!" Yu said with a sizeable hint of relief. "So what did you get?"

Daisy held up a large cup of a very dark liquid. "Brewster's newest menu item: The Pearspresso! It's pears AND coffee in one, bow-"

Ai and Yu began jittering and foaming at the lips. A faint muttering of "jibbly-jibbly-jibbly" could be heard.

"...wow?"

Daisy quickly ran out the door screaming as Ai and Yu dropped to the fetal position and began convulsing.

"Help! Somebody help! Ai and Yu just curled into a fetal position and started convulsing! I think they might be sick, bow-WOW!"

The townsfolk all came rushing to the house to find the words "LOCKED DOORS" painted on the door of Yu and Ai's mansion in the makeshift pear-coffee. Nobody was inside.

"Well, that does it," Nook said, looking thoughtful. "I think we all knew this was coming. It's been so long without anything interesting happening that if we don't do something soon, we'll all snap one by one! Timmy, Tommy, can you go to the bank and get some Bells out of of my ridiculously full savings account?"

"What for?" the creepy twins said in unison.

"...for?" Well, somewhat in unison.

"We're about to take up a new hobby, boys." A scheming look found its way onto Nook's face. "If you're going to go crazy, you might as well funnel it to something with the smallest amount of collateral damage, hm?" As he began laughing maniacally, lightning flashed in the background.

Tortimer quickly took an interest. "Wait, are you really going to-"

"You bet I am. I'll have it and the signal beam hooked up by tomorrow." Nook ran towards his shop. "Come, Timmy and Tommy! We have distressed citizens to save!" The three raccoon-things then headed off to do who-knows-what.

"Oh, I knew I never should have closed the town gates," Tortimer muttered worriedly. "Ever since that fateful day, they've been locked shut and nothing can open them!"

"Eh, who cares? There was nothing outside those gates anyway!" Phyllis said with her usual abrasive attitude. "I bet you that even if those gates get opened, there will be nothing outside them!"

* * *

Meanwhile, at the town gates, Copper and Booker returned from the cafe carrying cups of the new pear-coffee. They suddenly dropped their mugs in shock.

"Um... Is that-" Booker asked his partner nervously. Copper narrowed his eyes dangerously, like the loose cannon cop we all secretly know he is inside. "...Get Tortimer."

Yu and Ai stood in front of the town gates. Through the cracks in the doors, a bright light was emanating from inside...

* * *

**Q: What's the deal with the locked doors?**

A: It's a major plot point that will be revealed very soon.

**Q: What exactly is Tom Nook planning?**

A: You'll see. And it will be glorious.

**Q: Are the pears going to turn into a running gag?**

A: They already are.


	2. Back from the Palm Brink of Madness

**ACCESSING NEXUS...**  
** NEXUS ONLINE**  
** TIMESTAMP RECORDED: OCTOBER 16, 2012**

**SEARCHING FOR PROGRAMS...  
****ALERT: NEW PROGRAM(S) FOUND**

**DECRYPTING DATA...**

**FILE 1 DECRYPTED: "ANIMAL CROSSING: WILD WORLD"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...****  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 2 DECRYPTED: "DARK CLOUD 2"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL  
****  
NETWORKING...  
****NETWORK ESTABLISHED**

**RUNNING SIMULATION****  
**

* * *

Yu and Ai braced their eyes with the shadow of their arms as bright light penetrated the town gates of Denburg.

"It... It's..." Yu stuttered.

"It's... beautiful!" Ai exclaimed.

"And huge!" Yu said, astonished.

On the other side of the gate was a dark tunnel, connecting it to a different gate. Through that second gate was a town square, but not one they were familiar with.

"Wow, that's new," Ai said, a bit of excitement in her voice for the first time in years.

"What do you think this place is?" Yu asked.

"Who cares?!" Ai responded. She was sick of Denburg. "Let's go exploring!"

Ai grabbed Yu and ran through the gate. As they did, the gates slammed shut.

"Um... that's bad, right?" Booker said, unable to keep the gates from closing. "...Copper?" He looked around, but Copper was already gone. Booker sighed. This was going to be a VERY long day.

* * *

"Whee!" Ai squealed with reckless abandon.

Yu and Ai had placed water bucket traps over every single door in the newly-discovered town in the dead of night. They then sat down on the rooftop of a workshop to wait.

"So... where are we?" Yu asked.

"Beats me." Ai shrugged. "Ooh, look at the pretty sunrise!"

Sometime later, the doors opened as people emerged from their houses. Curses rang through the town as those sleepily headed for work were given a very rude awakening. Yu and Ai sat on their rooftop perch, watching and cackling with that sort of glee that only pranksters feel.

"Hehehehehe!" Ai laughed uncontrollably.

"Best day ever." Yu smiled. "So, how long until we can check which doors in this place have never been opened?"

Suddenly a blade was heard being unsheathed behind them. A pink-haired girl in a warrior outfit stood behind them, with her sword drawn and an unamused look on her face.

"You two! Don't move." The girl readied her blade.

"Or what?" Ai challenged her.

"I can't see since she's behind us, but I think she has a sword," Yu warned her. "Better not give her a reason to make you find out."

The zealous swordswoman pulled out a wooden box with mechanical parts built into it, and began talking into what could be assumed to be a receiver.

"Hey, Max? Might want to get out here," the girl said into the device. "I found the two... things... responsible for the huge mess." The device spouted a single staticky sentence. "Be right there!"

The girl walked closer to Yu and Ai. "Turn around. I want to get a better look at you." Yu and Ai turned around. The warrior girl was visibly surprised.

"Uh... wow. Okay, first question: What are you?"

"We're humans, duh."

"You don't look very human to me," their captor replied confusedly. Ai began to explain.

"We're not exactly from around-"

"I'm here!" a voice nearby said. The voice was recognizable as the one on the other end of the walkie-talkie equivalent. A blonde-haired boy in a worn work outfit ran up to Monica, lugging a huge wrench in his right hand. An old-fashioned gun was visible on his belt.

"Wow." That was all the boy could say.

"That's what I said."

"What are they?" the boy asked, a bit weirded out.

"They say they're human," the girl replied. "Strange, right?"

"O... kay." The boy just stared in confusion.

"Let's take them back to the mansion and get some more answers."

"Good idea."

"I heard the word 'mansion'," Yu asked, a hint of glee in his voice. He'd never been inside a mansion before, at least not a realistically-sized one, and the thought of seeing that much expensive stuff in one place sounded irresistible.

"That's right."

"Let's go!" Yu exclaimed, running off in a random direction before coming to a stop and returning. "Uh... which way is it?"

* * *

Later, the four were walking through the town. All four of them were in need of some answers, so it was decided they would ask the right question.

"Okay, so spill it. What are you really?" the pink-haired girl asked.

"As I was saying before you showed up," Ai explained, "We're humans, but we're not from around here."

"That much is obvious," the boy said, rolling his eyes. "So where are you from?"

"Denburg. Well, actually I'm from The City, but I moved to Denburg about seven years ago."

"How'd you get here?" the boy asked.

"Well," Ai began, "We had this weird urge to open doors that we'd never seen opened before, and Denburg's town gate somehow connected to the gates of..." Ai trailed off. "What's this place called, again?"

"Palm Brinks."

"Ah. So we somehow ended up in Palm Brinks and we thought we'd have a little fun while we were here." Ai nodded as she finished her recap.

"And you decided to have fun by pranking the whole city?" the girl asked.

"Pretty much." Ai shrugged.

"Hey, we never got your names!" the blonde boy realized.

"I'm Ai, and this is Yu," Ai said. "And don't bother with that joke, it's only funny once."

"We collect furniture and talk to neighbors," Yu explained. "But that life got boring, so we decided to embrace the cabin fever and look for something insane to do. Which is why we're here. How about you?"

"I'm Maximilian, or Max for short," the boy said with a bit of pride. "I'm an inventor, a photographer, and I also once held the Red Atmamillia."

"I'm Monica. Monica Raybrandt," the girl introduced herself. She then quickly added some more info. "I wield a sword and transform into monsters. Which is awesome."

"Little do you know that WE have weapons as well! HYAH!" Ai quickly tried to pull an escape, drawing an axe from her inventory. Seeing this, Yu drew his butterfly net. Ai looked at him and facepalmed.

"What? ...oh. HYAH!" Yu quickly pulled out his axe as well. They looked like dangerous weapons, but clearly, Ai and Yu had no idea where they truly were, or who they were dealing with.

"Max? Would you care to do the honors?" Monica gestured to Maximilian, expecting something to happen. A very specific something. And nearly instantaneously, that exact something happened.

* * *

"Aw, CHEAP!" Yu lamented, looking at the huge steampunk robot that was the Ridepod. "How come you get to ride a big, hulking mecha?!"

"It's not even technically mine," Maximilian sighed. "Cedric built it. I just used it to save the world."

"Wait, hold on. You saved the world once?" Ai asked, curious.

"Monica and I, yes. Although we couldn't have done it without all of the people willing to reinhabit a world where the towns had all been wiped out by time paradoxes." Maximilian answered. "Wait, weren't we fighting?"

"Beats me. Ai started it." Yu responded, pointing at Ai. "By which I mean she started it. Let's just put away all the weapons already." Yu put the axe back in his inventory. "Have you got anything to eat? I'm starving."

* * *

A short time later, Ai and Yu looked at the glorious feast laid out on the dining room table, their mouths drooling.

"Is that... potato pie?" Yu looked intently at the food.

"You like potato pie too?" Maximilian asked.

"I like anything but pears, seafood and coffee." Yu said. "Seriously, when that's all you get to eat for seven years, it drives you nuts!"

"Seafood? You have an ocean in Denburg?" Monica was quite interested in the place they had come from.

"I'll tell you all about it in 15 minutes." Ai said. "If we have to wait another second I swear we'll implode into a black hole or something!"

"You ARE joking, I hope."

"Um, duh? Regardless, let's eat!"

* * *

With several courses of the huge meal cleaned off the plates by Ai and Yu, they finished up and began explaining their town. Yu began by explaining the landscape.

"Okay, so here's how it is. Basically, we've got a beach to the south, two walls of stone on the east and west sides, another stone wall to the north with a gate through it, a river running roughly from north to south..."

Ai continued with the list of locations. "There's a museum which has been filled by the fossils, bugs, fish and paintings we've acquired over the years... Tom Nook has a shop called Nookway... The Able Sisters sell custom clothing and other stuff... There's a town hall that doubles as a post office... and the neighbour's houses which seemed to disappear every time they moved out of town. Who knows where to, since the gates have been locked for so long that nobody remembers it ever being open."

"Wait, did you say a gate... that was never opened?" Maximilian asked.

"Yeah, we eventually came through it in our quest to find a locked door. It sort of just... opened for us, and we came into a place here in Palm Brinks with a fountain." Yu explained.

Maximilian and Monica looked at each other, their eyes widening.

"Are you going to tell them?" Maximilian asked Monica.

"You've been here longer, you tell them." Monica answered.

"Tell us what?" Ai said, a bit confused.

"Remember how I said the rest of the world was retroactively destroyed by time paradoxes? Well, prepare for some exposition." Maximilian began telling the story that had occurred.

"10,000 years ago, there was a person. Sort of a rabbit-looking creature. His name was Sirus, and he was angry because warring humans caused the death of his best friend. He then got possessed by an evil spirit called the Dark Element and used a magic stone called an Atlamillia to alter time and eliminate humanity from the world."

"Neat," Yu remarked jokingly. Maximilian rolled his eyes again and continued.

"Nine years ago, a deranged man named Flotsam heard of the Atlamillia and their power and came to Palm Brinks with his circus troupe. Admittedly, we thought Flotsam was working for Sirus at the time. What's more, we thought Sirus was someone called Emperor Griffon. Anyway, Flotsam and his cronies came to Palm Brinks and tried to extort the mayor into giving him the Red Atlamillia, which has the power to send its user to the future. But what Flotsam didn't know was that the mayor didn't know anything about the stone, and that I actually had it.

"It turns out the mayor was trying to protect the town by keeping the town gates closed. Long story short, we defeated Flotsam, restored the timestream, and then discovered Sirus' true identity by travelling to his own time. After he was defeated, the Dark Element escaped, and Sirus gave his life to help us stop it once he realised what he'd done. After we defeated it, we came back here and Monica went back to her home time 100 years from now. Then, finally, she came back again and we did a bit of exploring in the Zelmite Mines here in town, where we discovered that Flotsam had become a cyborg and gotten a new boss in the form of a creature called the Dark Genie. We defeated them both, and all was well again. And that..." He took a deep breath. "...is how it's been for the past nine years."

"That's a pretty long explanation," Ai stated, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, we've done a lot more than just collect furniture and pay mortgages," Maximilian commented. "All said and done, though, Mayor Need said he would open the town gates after Flotsam was first defeated, but for some reason, he never went through with it. The only way in and out of town ever since has been the train station."

"Judging by how you got here, though..." Monica wondered, "I think that might have changed."

"Wait, you said you have a mayor here?" Yu asked.

"Yes, Mayor Need," Maximilian answered, sort of. "Why?"

"Hey, Ai? You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'll go get Mayor Tortimer!" Ai said, running back out of the mansion.

"I'd better go follow her and make sure she doesn't get lost," Maximilian said, running after her. "Call me on the Help Reciever if anything happens!"

"So..." Yu flailed his feet around a bit. "Are you doing anything Friday night?"

* * *

By the time they got to the town square, they realized they might as well not have bothered. Mostly. Townspeople of all kinds had gathered around to greet their strange new neighbors.

"What did you just call me?!" Phyllis shouted angrily to Doctor Dell.

"It was supposed to be a compliment!" the doctor said, trying to defend himself.

The two mayors, the Nooks and Pelly could only look on at the strange spectacle, along with many of Palm Brinks' townspeople.

"Whoa, hey! Is there really a need to fight?!" Maximilian said, trying to place himself between them.

"Forget it! I'm out of here!" Phyllis said angrily, stomping back through the gates towards Denburg.

"What did you say to her?" Ai asked. "Actually, never mind. Saying she's touchy is an understatement."

"Ahem! I believe we were in the middle of signing a treaty?" Tortimer asked.

"Oh! Of course. I'll go get my pen." Mayor Need said, rushing back into Palm Brinks' City Hall.

* * *

Meanwhile, as Phyllis went through the gates, she found the dark area between the two towns a lot larger than it had seemed at first.

"Stupid, rotten, cheapskate-" she muttered to herself, before suddenly walking into a wall of some sort. "OW! My beak!"

As if by magic, lights turned on above her and showed that she was in the midst of a massive hallway as large as a mall corridor, stretching on for miles in either direction. Fortunately for her, she could easily see the two town gates across from each other from the column she had smacked into. In front of her bill was a large button labelled "LIGHTS".

"Well, what do ya know! This place looks a lot more interesting with the lights on!" And with that, she began wandering the area, looking for something, anything, that she wasn't supposed to stick her nose - er, beak – into.

* * *

**Q: What's with the faux command line at the beginning?**

A: That's there for plot reasons which will be revealed shortly. Plus it acts as a bit of foreshadowing as to what will happen in a chapter, if you're patient enough to read through it.

**Q: If Ai and Yu have done everything, why don't they have Nookington's?**

A: Ai and Yu are from a copy of Animal Crossing: Wild World, for the DS. Unlike the original Animal Crossing, you have to go online to be able to upgrade Nookway into Nookington's, and it should be fairly obvious that this never happened.

**Q: How can it be midday in Denburg and dawn in Palm Brinks?**

A: The game worlds aren't synchronized simply due to the fact that the day-night cycle in Dark Cloud 2 is programmed to run faster than real-time.

**Q: Why Dark Cloud 2?**

A: This story is a collaboration with my brother Chris, better known as OliveTwyster on this site. He claims it's because it's one of the few other games in our collection that has unopenable town gates, but Dark Cloud 2 also happens to be one of his favorite video games, so it was a bit of self-indulgence on his part.

**Q: Why do you consistently use Maximilian instead of Max?**

A: Because (spoiler alert) there's another Max set to join the cast in the future and we have to tell them apart in the narrative.


	3. The Unmanliest Color

"...and that's who all the people are in Denburg," Ai finished the exposition she had started in the interim between chapters. "Well, the ones who stick around, at least."

"Oh, come on, Ai. Just telling them is kind of stupid when the town's right through those gates!" Yu made a motion to Maximilian and Monica to follow.

Of course, they were very surprised to find that was not exactly the case any longer.

"You were saying?" Ai said rhetorically as the four all entered the huge chamber.

"What is this place?" Monica asked.

"Beats us," Yu answered, as confused as anyone. "It wasn't here when we came through the first time."

"Let's just show them Denburg as quickly as possible so we can start exploring this place." Ai ran across the corridor and through the gates into Denburg. "Last one to the Museum has to drink the Pearspresso!"

"Ew, no way!" Yu said chasing after her.

"Hey, hold on! Don't leave us behind!" Maximilian shouted after them. He and Monica followed suit. But little did they know that above them, on a suspended walkway, Phyllis was watching.

"That's right. Just walk on by." Once they could no longer be heard, she turned around, and looked intently at where her search had led her. A gigantic door stood forebodingly in the hall, reinforced with some kind of blue-hued metal. As Phyllis stepped close, the circular locking plate in the center rotated 90 degrees, and the whole massive structure began to separate, granting her access. Phyllis' jaw dropped when she saw what was waiting inside.

"Buttons and levers and switches, oh my!"

They lined every wall, and damn, were those some enormous walls. A person could do a lot of damage with that kind of equipment. Especially if that person happened to be a grouchy mail clerk who had no idea what any of the strange doohickeys DID. Therefore, as could be expected, she just began fiddling with them at random.

Unfortunately for her (but fortunately for the story), this was an incredibly stupid idea.

All at once, the ground began to shake, and sparks began leaping from the control panels. Phyllis began banging on the array of buttons, but this only made the havoc even worse. Finally, she noticed a gigantic red button in the corner. It was nearly twice as tall as Phyllis herself, easily dwarfing every other piece of equipment in the room. Above it, there was a very clear warning sign: "FULL NEXUS ACTIVATION - FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY".

Naturally, she slammed both fists into it as hard as she could.

* * *

**FULL NEXUS ACTIVATION INITIATED  
****NETWORK EXPANSION PROTOCOL INITIATED****  
****TIMESTAMP RECORDED: OCTOBER 16, 2012**

**SEARCHING FOR PROGRAMS...  
****ALERT: NEW PROGRAM(S) FOUND**

**DECRYPTING DATA...**

**FILE 3 DECRYPTED: "KIRBY'S DREAMLAND"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL  
****  
FILE 4 DECRYPTED: "KIRBY'S ADVENTURE"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 5 DECRYPTED: "KIRBY'S DREAMLAND 2"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 6 DECRYPTED: "KIRBY SUPER STAR"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 7 DECRYPTED: "KIRBY'S DREAMLAND 3"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 8 DECRYPTED: "KIRBY 64: THE CRYSTAL SHARDS"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 9 DECRYPTED: "KIRBY AND THE AMAZING MIRROR"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 10 DECRYPTED: "KIRBY SUPER STAR ULTRA"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
OVERWRITING FILE 6...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL  
****  
NETWORKING...  
****NETWORK ESTABLISHED  
****REBOOTING SIMULATION****  
**

* * *

It was a beautiful day in Dreamland, as always. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and as usual, nothing was currently exploding.

Then a little pink round thing found a Nexus portal and everything went downhill.

* * *

Yu sat in front of a cup of Pearspresso. Ai, K.K. Slider and several villagers all chanted "Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!", daring him to down the brew.

"Is this what you do every day?" Monica asked.

"No, just on Saturday nights," Yu said, swigging another cup of the vile fluid.

Brewster placed another fresh cup of java on the table, as Yu looked about ready to puke. Then the cup of abhorrent liquid suddenly flew off the edge of the table with a distinctive "hweeeeeehh" noise, where it was quickly ingested, cup and all, by a rotund pink… thing. All eyes turned to the newcomer, who let out a loud belch and waved hello.

"Well, at least we know it's friendly," Maximilian said.

* * *

"So, Blathers..." Ai asked, "Any idea what it is?"

"Well, after a thorough examination and an extensive recollection of my accumulated knowledge..." Blathers said, a pair of gears ticking near his head like some sort of cartoon expression, "...I have no clue whatsoever. Sorry."

"That figures..." Ai said, an anime sweatdrop thing appearing on the back of her head.

"Kirby!" the little pink thing suddenly shouted, the first word it said since it arrived.

"Is that its name?" Monica asked. Everyone just shrugged.

Suddenly a rumbling motion shook the museum. Everyone rushed outside to see Phyllis egging a Poppy Bro Jr. into throwing bombs at the museum building. Paradoxically, the barrage of explosives hadn't yet begun to damage the building itself.

"Phyllis! What do you think you're doing?! There are fragile artifacts in there!" Blathers shouted at her. Phyllis turned to them with an evil smirk on her face. Along with a mask taken from the Able Sisters' shop, which of course did absolutely nothing to conceal her identity. "Ha! You idiots! You have no idea what we really are, do you?"

"What is she talking about?" Maximilian asked. Yu and Ai just shrugged.

"Oh, come off it! If you must know... We're all video game characters!"

A "dun-dun-dun" noise played in the background. Everyone just looked at her funny.

"What's a video game?" Maximilian asked.

"It's... weird. I don't seem to remember," Ai said. "It's as if by some weird coincidence, I've heard the words but I have never seen one of these 'video game' things."

"For crying out loud!" Phyllis yelled, finally at the end of her rope. "Fine! I'm headed back to the Nexus to mess with the control panel some more." Phyllis turned to leave.

"Control panel?!" Yu, Ai, Maximilian and Monica said at once. The four of them turned to each other with a fearful look on their faces.

Phyllis grabbed the Poppy Bro Jr. and made a run for the town gate, when without warning, a vehicle resembling Gracie's car (but painted to look like a raccoon) screeched to a halt in her path, a red version of the Nook's Cranny logo on it's side. Suddenly, a "mysterious vigilante" emerged from it in a puff of smoke.

"Halt, evildoer! Or face the wrath of... THE TANOOKI AVENGER!" said Tom Nook in a paper-thin disguise.

"Bringer of Justice™ and Cheap Furniture!" Timmy and Tommy added in their creepy twins voice.

"Out of my way, you stupid shopkeeper!" Phyllis shouted at the supposed superhero. "Who do you think you're foolin'?!"

"You, for one," Nook said with a smirk. "Hey, pink thing! Get her!"

A distinctive "hweeeeeehh" noise was heard, and the Poppy Bro Jr. was pulled out of Phyllis' grip. Kirby swallowed it whole and then brought it back as a Helper in a burst of blue energy.

"Uh-oh." That was all Phyllis could mutter, just before the Poppy Bro Jr.'s bomb sent her flying into the sky, where she smacked into a balloon that promptly popped, causing a present to fall from above. Phyllis kept sailing into the distance. "I'm blasting off again!" she said mockingly, just before disappearing from sight.

"Thanks, little guy," Monica said to Kirby.

"Kirby!" was pretty much all he could respond with. The Poppy Bro Jr. just stood on one of its bombs, balancing on one foot as if by habit.

"Does he even understand anything we say?" Maximilian wondered. "Oh, well. Who's ready to go look for that control panel?"

"Can we come?" Ai asked. "This place is really, really boring."

"Plus I want to see this control panel thing!" Yu said.

"Control panels are pretty boring, actually," Monica told them.

"I think they're kind of cool," Maximilian disagreed.

"But you spent your spare time fixing vacuums and inventing weapons," Monica commented. "Of course YOU would find a control panel interesting."

"Whatever. Let's go!" Ai said, running ahead to the Town Gate. "First one there gets to push the first button!"

As the four of them began running towards the gate, Kirby stayed in Denburg. He waddled up to a random pear tree, and with a distinctive "hweeeeeehh" noise, devoured the fruit off its branches. He then went onward in search of his next meal, the Poppy Bro Jr. following him closely.

* * *

**Q: Where's that "other" Max you mentioned?**

A: Next episode, we promise.

**Q: If Ai and Yu don't have Nookington's, does the Nexus count as online play?**

A: Apparently not. Go figure.

**Q: Why didn't Dreamland/Pop Star make an appearance?**

A: The Kirby games have NEVER been 3D, with the slight exception of Kirby Air Ride for the Gamecube (which we haven't owned for years). We may use it in the future, however.

**Q: ...haven't owned for years?**

A: Well, to make sure we do everything right, we play a game to completion before we include it in the story. Which we can't very well do if we don't own a copy of it.

**Q: Why Kirby?**

A: One of the first video games we ever played was the original Kirby Super Star on the SNES. It's the reason we picked up the DS remake. And besides, the little pink puffball makes a great comic relief character.

**Q: Why Phyllis? She's not evil!**

A: Oh, the villains from Kirby's games will be along shortly, not to mention the antagonists of all the much more serious games from our collection. She was just there because we needed conflict early on when all the Dark Cloud 2 villains were defeated and Animal Crossing is not that type of game.

**Q: But still, Phyllis? Really?**

A: Well, she'll serve a more important role later on (spoiler alert!). Besides, games in the Nexus usually do one of two things: Either they become completed 100% instantly, or (for games with total free-roam) start at the beginning of their storyline with 0% completion. Animal Crossing is a special case since it's possible to do everything 100% despite the freeform, while for example two other games we own with free-roaming worlds are non-linear. The point being that Dark Cloud 2 is 100% complete, so the closest remaining thing to an antagonist from there would be the minor enemies from the dungeons. That, and we couldn't think of a way to bring in Meta Knight or King Dedede fast enough without forcing the storyline in an awkward way.

**Q: Where did the Nexus come from?**

A: That's an important plot point that won't be revealed until next time. Sorry!

**Q: How grimdark are you willing to go with the games in the Nexus?**

A: First you should know that characters keep their default game mechanics regardless of location. So Yu and Ai and the villagers of Denburg are all utterly invincible (save for a "thing" with spiders, bees and scorpions), while Maximilian and Monica have one life but hundreds of hit points. As for Kirby, he has finite lives, infinite continues, a health bar and an ability to "guard", not to mention his ability to copy abilities from things. All said and done, this means that light-hearted characters can't die gruesome permanent deaths. As for the question itself, we realized that we couldn't be TOO biased against scary games, but stopped at "Fallout: New Vegas" for realistic games and "The Binding of Isaac" for unrealistic ones.

**Q: Will you use "x popular game"/"y game I like"/"z game I hope you won't use"?**

A: That depends on whether we like the game and whether we can get our hands on a copy of it. Sorry but no suggestions; the economy right now is such that we (like a lot of people) don't have money to throw around just because someone asked.

**Q: Pretty please? I'll pay for a copy for you.**

A: We'll accept a game donation (if somebody's that nice), but remember that just because you liked it doesn't mean we will, and vice-versa. If we can't play a game to completion, we can't very well write about it properly.

**Q: Okay, okay. Can I get a list of games you WILL use?**

A: Well, we'd prefer not to give it all away, but after the next episode we'll be introducing _Spore: Galactic Adventures_, _American McGee's Alice_, _Psychonauts_, _Back to the Future: The Game_ and _Team Fortress 2_. Oh, and we plan on getting _Minecraft_ at some point too.

**Q: Hey, wait a minute... This is just like _Wreck-It Ralph_!**

A: Yes and no. We came up with this idea years ago, but lost all our work due to hard drive failure. We can't prove it enough to claim legal rights to the idea, however, and since it used real games back then anyway, while _Wreck-It Ralph_ uses mostly expies, feel free to give their excellent movie credit for the idea instead of our fanfic. Besides, the trailer is what inspired us to revive the idea.


	4. Do Not Feed the Lagomorph

As Kirby ran back and forth through Denburg, eating the pears off the trees, he came upon a small gift box that had fallen from the balloon Phyllis had popped.

Looking at the strange package, he decided - as could be expected from Kirby - to try and eat it. He opened his mouth to vacuum it in, but before he could do so the box burst open and an old rival leaped out.

"Kirby! So we meet again," Meta Knight said as he pointed his sword at the pink ball. "It seems we aren't alone in the multiverse... but then, you never were much for words, were you? Very well! I must explore these surroundings and assess any threats they may pose!" Meta Knight then leaped onto a nearby tree and leapt from treetop to treetop around Denburg.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Nexus control room, Yu, Ai, Maximilian and Monica had gathered around the only object that had not been touched by Phyllis' rampage.

"What do you think it is?" Yu asked nobody in particular.

"Well, only one way to find out," Maximilian said, pressing the button on the device. "What? I did make it here first."

"Only because you cheated!" Ai complained. "Stupid Ridepod."

The device turned out to be some sort of media disk, which promptly sunk into a recess in the surface it sat on and began spinning. A human woman in a lab coat could be seen on the screen as the recording began. Thumping noises came from a door on the wall behind her, and she looked a fair bit panicked.

"...it's the Grox. We wanted to give life to them all, starting with video games. It went horribly, horribly right. The Grox are spreading... They've taken our outpost... I don't know what they'll do to me, but it won't be pretty. I've seen them looking at the worlds we've connected. We saved most of them by cutting the Nexus gate in this outpost and destroying our equipment so they couldn't find any others, but they managed to get one. If anyone sees this, heed this message. You have to save them. You have to save Oddworld before-"

A laser blast was heard from the video before it cut off. Everyone just looked at the now static-covered screen in shock. Ai broke the silence.

"Well, shit."

* * *

**SEARCHING FOR PROGRAMS...  
****ALERT: NEW PROGRAM(S) FOUND****  
****  
****DECRYPTING DATA...  
****  
FILE 12 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX: CULTURE SHOCK"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 13 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX: SITUATION: COMEDY"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 14 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX: THE MOLE, THE MOB AND THE MEATBALL"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 15 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX: ABE LINCOLN MUST DIE!"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 16 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX: REALITY 2.0"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 17 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX: BRIGHT SIDE OF THE MOON"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 18 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX: ICE STATION SANTA"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 19 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX: MOAI BETTER BLUES"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 20 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX: NIGHT OF THE RAVING DEAD"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 21 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX: CHARIOTS OF THE DOGS"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL  
****  
FILE 22 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX: WHAT'S NEW, BEELZEBUB?"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL  
****  
FILE 23 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX - THE DEVIL'S PLAYHOUSE: THE PENAL ZONE"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL  
****  
FILE 24 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX - THE DEVIL'S PLAYHOUSE: THE TOMB OF SAMMUN-MAK"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL  
****  
FILE 25 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX - THE DEVIL'S PLAYHOUSE: THEY STOLE MAX'S BRAIN!"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL  
****  
FILE 26 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX - THE DEVIL'S PLAYHOUSE: BEYOND THE ALLEY OF THE DOLLS"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 27 DECRYPTED: "SAM & MAX - THE DEVIL'S PLAYHOUSE: THE CITY THAT DARES NOT SLEEP"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**NETWORKING...  
****NETWORK ESTABLISHED**

**REBOOTING SIMULATION****  
**

* * *

Outside a small New York office building, Sam and Max, the Freelance Police, had long since realized they weren't getting back into their office.

"When are we gonna get our next case, Sam?" the beartrap-toothed lagomorph asked for the 491728th time.

"I hate to say it, little buddy," replied his bipedal canine partner, "but I don't think we ARE going to get another case."

Then the door to their office building opened.

The _unopenable_ door.

"Isn't that the door we could never open?" Sam asked.

"Heck if I know! I was asleep when you tried," Max answered.

"For several months?" Sam shook his head in disbelief. "I'll never understand how you could sleep in until November."

"It's called hibernation, Sam."

"Rabbits don't hibernate." Sam paused for a moment to wonder if Max actually counted as a rabbit, before noticing that Yu, Ai, Maximilian and Monica had stepped out of the door. "Never mind. It looks like we have visitors."

"Hi. Do either of you know where Oddworld is?" Monica asked.

"Sorry, but we've never heard of it." Sam shrugged. "Who are you? And how did you get into our office building?"

"This is Yu and Ai. He's Max, and I'm Monica Raybrandt."

"He can't be Max! _I'm_ Max!" Max said.

"Oh no! Not again!" Maximilian said, facepalming. "Just when I thought we were done with name confusion."

"Oh, just use Maximilian from now on and forget about it." Yu said, motioning towards the door of the apartment. "We've got more important things to worry about, like showing these two villagers the Nexus."

"Villagers?" Sam asked, a bit offended. "In case you haven't noticed, we're in New York." The four newcomers looked at each other.

"New York?" Monica asked. "Never heard of it. You two?"

"I think I might have heard of some distant city, but... well... remember how I said I don't know what a video game is?" Ai explained.

"Long story short, we're not from around here." Maximilian elaborated.

"That much is obvious." Sam replied snarkily. "Where DO you come from?"

"Me and her?" Yu said, pointing to Ai. "Denburg. Sorry about that villager comment, but Denburg's this cute little community where we're the only two human residents. It was just the default response to seeing another talking bipedal animal, honest."

"I'm from Palm Brinks." Maximilian added. "And Monica is... is... Hey! I've never really asked where Monica came from!"

"100 years in the future, remember?" Monica reminded him.

"No, I mean what city or town or- Let me guess. You don't remember."

"...that's actually kind of disturbing. I really don't remember."

"Ahem!" Yu reminded them pointing towards the open door of the office building.

"Maybe we should explain the Nexus to them first, Yu." Maximilian said.

* * *

A couple hours later, they had explained everything to each other, save for one important detail.

"So you know what a video game actually is?" Monica asked.

"Of course. We played one when we had to stop the internet from hypnotizing everyone." Sam then proceeded to explain the events of 'Reality 2.0', leaving things a lot clearer.

"We're FICTIONAL CHARACTERS?!" Ai exclaimed, "Well THAT explains a lot."

"Well since that's taken care of, we'd better find that Oddworld place." Monica said, "Hopefully we can warn them that those Grox things are coming."

"But we'd need teams of people searching the Nexus to even do that! The place is huge!" Yu responded.

"Why not just form a team or two out of the six of us?" Maximilian suggested, "That way we can split up and maybe recruit others to our cause."

"To the Nexus!" Yu proclaimed, and ran off to the door of the office. The others followed behind.

* * *

**Q: Wait, does the "Nexus Programmer" die? That's kind of grim.**

A: No, she's fine. They'll find a way to rescue the creators of the Nexus later on.

**Q: Why Sam & Max?**

A: Because they're hilarious! That's about it. What? It's not like we need a reason for ALL the games we add!

**Q: Aha! So you're going to add _Oddworld_?**

A: Not for quite some time, but yes.

**Q: Is that scene with the Grox a reference?**

A: Yes, to a much more disturbing scene from the _Firefly_ movie, _Serenity_, involving a recording of a female researcher just before she was attacked by Reavers.

**Q:Aha! So THAT'S the "Max" you were going to add!**

A: One of them, yes. :-D

**Q: Hey, wait a minute... This is just like _Kid Radd_!**

A: Wait, does anybody actually remember that webcomic? Regardless, as you know, _Wreck-It Ralph_ was released in November of 2012, and its trailer was the inspiration for REVIVING Animal Crossover. But as we have stated, the first version, now lost due to hardware problems, predates the movie by years.

On the other hand, _Kid Radd_ was made near the beginning of the last decade (Yes, we're in the New 10s now, for anyone who hasn't realized that yet) and predates even the original version of Animal Crossover, at the time called "Animal Craziness". Therefore this fanfic AND the Disney movie are technically borrowing an idea that was first used about 10 years ago. =P


	5. Poker Night at the Roost

Kirby, having eaten all the pears off of the trees, was now looking bored. He refused to go near the coconuts, as if they were liable to fall on him and explode or something.

With nothing else to do, the little pink protagonist went into the Nexus through the Denburg town gate and began wandering around.

* * *

Shortly after Kirby had left, King Dedede wandered into Denburg as if he owned the place. The villagers, having greeted him in their usual ways, were met with Dedede's arrogant attitude and quickly became annoyed.

That was when Meta Knight showed up.

"Well, look who it is! Mr. 'Take Over Dreamland to Save It' himself!" King Dedede said as Meta Knight jumped down from a tree.

"Save your breath, Dedede!" Meta Knight responded bluntly. "I've taken a look around here, and this peaceful town doesn't need you or anyone else messing it up. Leave now, or I shall challenge you to a duel!" Meta Knight warned him.

"Blah, blah! Let's fight, ya masked blue Kirby rip-off!" Dedede said, drawing his hammer.

"So be it." Meta Knight responded, unsheathing his sword.

They then proceeded to fight an epic battle which you won't get to see. Mwahahahaha.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Nexus control room, Yu, Ai, Maximilian, Monica, Sam and the "other" Max had all gathered in the area directly between the two town gates.

"Okay, for now let's just split up by home world." Maximilian suggested. "Unless someone has a better idea."

"I got one!" Max said out of nowhere.

"How do you have an idea when you've never-" Sam stopped mid-sentence. "Of course! The Inventory!"

"The... Inventory?" Yu wondered.

"It's this place where Max plays poker with some other guys. Who are they again?" Sam asked his heterosexual life partner.

* * *

**WARNING! CHARACTER DATA ACCESS DETECTED.  
****ACCESSING DISKS...****  
****  
SEARCHING FOR PROGRAMS...  
****ALERT: NEW PROGRAM(S) FOUND**

**DECRYPTING DATA...**

**FILE 27 DECRYPTED: "POKER NIGHT AT THE INVENTORY"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION PATIALLY SUCCESSFUL; LOADING DEPENDENCIES**

**FILE 28 DECRYPTED: "TEAM FORTRESS 2"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 29 DECRYPTED: "STRONG BAD'S COOL GAME FOR ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE - EPISODE 1: HOMESTAR RUINER"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 30 DECRYPTED: "STRONG BAD'S COOL GAME FOR ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE - EPISODE 2: STRONG BADIA THE FREE"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 31 DECRYPTED: "STRONG BAD'S COOL GAME FOR ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE - EPISODE 3: BADDEST OF THE BANDS"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 32 DECRYPTED: "STRONG BAD'S COOL GAME FOR ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE - EPISODE 4: DANGERESQUE 3: THE CRIMINAL PROJECTIVE"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

**FILE 33 DECRYPTED: "STRONG BAD'S COOL GAME FOR ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE - EPISODE 5: 8-BIT IS ENOUGH"**

**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL  
****FILE 34 DECRYPTED: "PENNY ARCADE'S ON THE RAIN-SLICK PRECIPICE OF DARKNESS 3"  
****ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...  
****INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL  
****  
WARNING! DEPENDENCIES ARE MISSING FROM LIBRARY; GLITCHES MAY OCCUR**

NETWORKING...

**NETWORK ESTABLISHED  
****  
REBOOTING SIMULATION****  
**

* * *

A few minutes later, the six of them were standing in front of a door in a back alley, a sign on said door clearly labelling it as "Inventory".

"How did we get here?" Maximilian asked.

"Probably best not to think about it," Yu commented. "Well, no use standing around." He reached out to knock on the door.

"Actually, standing around is exactly what you have to do," Max said, shaking his head.

Suddenly, a brass pneumatic elevator closed around them and began going underground. The vertical tunnel, lined with stone blocks, gave way to a classy club filled with strangely-shaped lighting fixtures and rows of shelves, each lined with books.

The elevator came to a stop, then opened before receding into the floor from around them.

"Ah, hello there!" A man wearing a red smoking jacket and a captain's hat walked up to greet them. "I am Reginald Van Winslow. Welcome to the Inventory. I see you're acquaintances of our regular patrons Sam & Max."

"I'd hardly call myself a regular patron," Sam said. "I've mostly just wandered around in the background while Max plays poker."

"What's poker?" Yu asked. The other three newcomers just shrugged.

"New to the game of poker, are you?" Reginald said in surprise. "Well, I suppose there's a first time for everyone. Right this way."

A few minutes later, they had been led to the table where the Heavy, Strong Bad and Tycho were in the middle of a game. The entire pot of chips had been placed in the middle of the table. Obviously, someone was desperate. Or possibly all three of them.

Tycho proudly laid down his cards, prompting the Heavy to slam his fist on the table... and Strong Bad to do the same with his head.

"Read 'em and weep, boys," Tycho stated smugly. "Full house." He proceeded to gather up all the chips. "I'll just be taking your money now. I've got a few special purchases to make tonight." He got up from the table and walked away, counting the thirty thousand dollars which had been the night's pot.

"I see you're both bankrupt already?" Sam asked the two players.

"Oh no, of COURSE not! We have PLENTY more where that came from," Strong Bad said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Where am I going to get more money to buy a Limozeen 2013 'Party Like it's 1983' World Tour concert ticket now?!"

"Dang, that game looked cool!" Yu said, disappointed.

"Why can't we just play for nothing?" Monica asked.

"Sorry, miss, but gambling without stakes is actually against the club rules," Reginald answered.

"Hey, I know! Why don't we go back to Denburg? The Roost would make a great place to play!" Ai suggested. Strong Bad and the Heavy didn't look too keen.

"We'll play for keeps and let you buy in for free." Maximilian quickly added.

NOW they were interested.

"We still need a dealer, though..." Sam said.

"You're the one who brought it up. You do it," Yu said impatiently. "Denburg is boring as heck. I need something new to do!"

Sam just shrugged and grabbed a deck of cards from the table.

* * *

An hour later, they had set up for the game in the Roost. Everyone was sitting in chairs around a large table, with Sam wearing one of those transparent brimmed headband thingies.

_(You mean an accountant's visor?)_

_(Shush, you.)_

"Okay, that's ten thousand dollars for everyone but Strong Bad and the Heavy."

"What's a dollar?" Ai asked.

"Money," Sam replied. "Never mind. Everyone bets their native currency at a rate of one smallest unit per penny. 100 pennies is a dollar, which means 1,000,000 of whatever it is you use."

"A million Bells it is!" Yu said, placing a huge bag with a picture of a leaf on the table. Ai followed suit.

"One million Gilda." Maximilian said, dumping a bunch of of gold coins on the table. Monica did the same.

* * *

Within a few minutes, Strong Bad and the Heavy had gathered most of the money between them, with Max at a close third. Sam dealt everyone a new set of hands.

"Still liking decision to let us play free?" the Heavy said, giving a deep laugh.

"Looks like you're gonna have to fold!" Strong Bad taunted.

"That joke has NEVER been funny, Strong Bad," Max complained. "And I know funny."

"Whatever, Bunnym'n," Strong Bad responded.

That was when a new face walked in, shouting back up the stairs as he descended. "This isn't over, Meta Knight!" King Dedede turned to the characters playing poker and quickly became interested. "Mind if I buy in?"

"Uh, who are you again?" Yu asked.

"You know that Kirby guy?" King Dedede asked, "I came from the same place he did. King Dedede, nice to meet you." He crossed his...uh...mittens?...behind his back as he said this.

So at a cost of a million bells (counterfeited by Crazy Redd unbeknownst to the other players) which he claimed he had "exchanged his native currency for", he picked up some cards and began playing. Two turns later, everyone else, including Strong Bad and the Heavy, were bankrupt.

"Looks like I win!" King Dedede chuckled, "Bad luck for you, I guess! Now if you'll excuse me, I have somewhere else to be right now." He gathered up his winnings and left in a bit of a hurry.

"I don't believe it!" Maximilian said. "I swear my hand was good!"

Maximilian set down his hand face up. Everyone else did the same. They were about to leave penniless when Sam took a look at the cards. "Hey, wait a minute! There's 8 Aces here!" He flipped over the Aces from Dedede's hand and saw the King's emblem on the backside.

"We've been had!" Strong Bad complained loudly. "That's MY shtick!"

The Heavy pulled out his minigun and shouted angrily up the stairs. "You can run, penguin man... but you can never outrun bullets!" With that, he stormed up the staircase and out the museum door, Sasha's six barrels rotating with a thirst for swift vengeance.

Max broke the silence that followed. "Wow. I sure wouldn't want to be him right now." It was then that Max spied a stray mug sitting on the table. "Ooh, coffee!" He took a sip... and immediately spat out the Pearspresso contained within.

"Nasty!"

* * *

**Q: Wow! So... what's next?**

A: We're not really sure. We'll think of something. Any other questions?

**Q: Not really...**

A: Oh. Okay then. Feel free to let us know in the comments if you have any questions.


	6. Official Strategy Guide to the Galaxy

After the poker game, they had contemplated looking around further for "Oddworld", but came to the conclusion they would need some equipment first. Aside from the massive numbers of doors, neither Strong Bad nor the Heavy had ever heard of such a place. Though Strong Bad mentioned something about the oddness of the other inhabitants of Free Country, USA.

Little did they realize that the news of the Nexus was spreading fast, even without their interference...

* * *

**WARNING! CHARACTER DATA ACCESS DETECTED.**  
**TIMESTAMP RECORDED: OCTOBER 27, 2012**  
**ACCESSING DISKS...**

** SEARCHING FOR PROGRAMS...**  
**ALERT: NEW PROGRAM(S) FOUND**

** DECRYPTING DATA...**

** FILE 35 DECRYPTED: "SPORE"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 36 DECRYPTED: "SPORE: CREEPY & CUTE PARTS PACK"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 37 DECRYPTED: "SPORE GALACTIC ADVENTURES"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** NETWORKING...**  
**NETWORK ESTABLISHED**

** REBOOTING SIMULATION**

* * *

A few days after Yu and Ai were in their mansion (though hardly a mansion compared to Maximilian's place) gathering some things when a knock occured at the door. Ai quickly answered it.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Hi." said a strange, small brown furry creature with buck teeth and a fluffy tail. It was also wearing a pair of storage tanks on its back, a helmet with two protruding metal things covering it's small antlers, a piece of armor on its chest and a strange watch on its left wrist.

"Eeeeeeeeeeee!" Ai squealed in surprise, then passed out.

"Sorry about that, I-" Yu paused as he looked over the alien being, "What the heck are you?!"

"I was getting to that." the entity said, "Hi, I'm Twystar, Space Captain and Ambassador for the Gabywr Empire."

"Great Nexus, it's a Guh-bear! Get in the car!" Yu said jokily.

"Oh, ha ha." Twystar said, annoyed. "It's spelled 'Gabywr', smartass."

"Got a reason for being here?" Yu asked.

"You put up a 'shared accommodations available' ad?" Twystar said, holding up a piece of a newspaper.

"Oh. OH!" Yu said, facepalming. "I forgot Nook was still looking for more tenants!"

* * *

A few minutes later, Yu, Ai and Twystar were sitting down around a pine table talking and pretending to drink from empty cups, seeing as there was no non-coffee beverages in Denburg. Due to it's seeming triviality, they hadn't noticed that he only ever seemed to hold one thing at a time.

"So where exactly are you from?" Yu asked.

"Well, you obviously know about the Nexus." Twystar began, "Basically I went through a wormhole in the Galactic Core to get here."

"You're an alien?!" Ai asked, surprised. "Wait, never mind. I guess that was pretty obvious."

"Yeah, but I bet you didn't know the name of the game I'm from." Twystar added.

"Wait, you KNOW we're all video game characters?!" Yu said, amazed.

"I know a lot of things. But I'm not going to tell you all of it now. Suffice to say, my home planet of Qrytwk is in the galaxy of 'Spore: Galactic Adventures'. It's a nice place, you should stop by sometime." Twystar said. "Well, it's been nice meeting you, but there's a reason I needed a place here. Either of you know where the museum is?"

* * *

Twystar walked into the museum carrying a bottle filled with a pink powder. Blathers was fast asleep standing up as usual.

"Hello?" Twystar asked the sleeping owl, "Helloooo?"

Still no response, Twystar decided that, instead of shouting at the curator, he had a much better idea in mind. "Time to try out that little device I found earlier..." He set down the bottle and then turned his attention to the seemingly ordinary steampunk-looking watch, looking at it quizically. "...if I can just figure out how to get it to work."

The lid of the golden watch-thing was engraved with some large-lettered words to mark it's origin, the phrases "Nexus-VG Interface Terminal - Property of Galatea Project - FOR USE BY NEXUS EXPLORATION TEAMS ONLY" in large silver print. Twystar tapped twice lightly on the lid, and it opened to reveal a keypad, the numbers 1 to 9 arranged in a circle around the 0 in the center.

"Here we go!" Twystar said prodly, and tapped the 0 button. Suddenly a holographic menu appeared in front of him, identical in GUI format to that of 'Spore'. On its projected menus, the box cover art for 'Spore: Galactic Adventures' was visible in a window labelled "Interface Directory".

"Oh. Well that's pretty convenient!" Twyster said, giving a grin with his beaver-ish 'Bucky Buckerson' mouth. He quickly assigned his native game to the 1 button. Swiping the scroll bar down with his hand, he selected the box art for 'Animal Crossing: Wild World' and linked it to the 2 button.

Selecting an option in the Interface Directory labelled "Enable Relevant Cheat Commands", he was quickly accosted by a warning message. Twystar took a very quick glance. "WARNING! You are about to betray your fellow gamers...cheat devices not endorsed by console makers...cheating can corrupt your save file... Blah blah! I get it." He frowned. "Activate me some cheats!"

The menu displayed the words "CHEAT MODE ENABLED - Joker badge earned!" and then returned to the previous menu. He tapped the 2 button, and the menues disappeared momentarily to be replaced by a version more befitting of the game he was presently in, before a press of the 0 button made those disappear completely.

Picking up the bottle again, he 'put it away' as if he was placing it into a pocket, despite the fact that he wasn't wearing pants. Looking back at the holographic menu, he clicked a button labelled "Action Replay DS", and a screen with a bunch of checkmarks beside descriptive sentences appeared.

"Hmm... Well, I could always use the golden tools. Ooh, and one of these!" Twystar said, checking several boxes.

He then turned off the holograms, released a housefly into the room, and pulled out his new Golden Net.

"Oh wow! A housefly! I'd better catch it!" Twystar said mockingly. Waiting for the fly to land on the owl curator, he then caught the housefly, hitting Blathers in the process.

Of course Blathers quickly woke up, the net still holding the fly in place near him. "Ouch! I say, that hurt! Do be more careful!"

"But I just caught the icky housefly that was crawling all over you with it's gross legs and compound eyes..." Twystar said tauntingly.

"Gah! Get it away from me!" Blathers said, pushing the net away and running into the nearest door he could find.

That door was for the bugs section. Blathers came running back out, and tripped in the process. He curled up into the fetal position on the floor, shaking in disgust. "So... many... beetles..."

"Yeah, well... You were kind of asleep and I needed to wake you up." Twystar said, "C'mon, its not THAT bad!"

With that, Blathers quickly composed himself. "I suppose they didn't harm me. But still..." Blathers said. He shuddered momentarily. "Ah! I haven't introduced myself! I am Blathers, the Denburg Museum's sole staff member."

"Twystar, Space Captain and Emmisary for the Gabywr Empire." the space captain introduced himself for the Nth time, "Pleasure to meet you."

"The same." Blathers said, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go take a dunk in one of the fish tanks." He shuffled into the aquarium section muttering "unclean-unclean-unclean..." as he went.

Twystar was about to look around for something, when Celeste wandered down the stairs. "I need more coffee... So help me, I'm not going to fall asleep all the time like my brother does."

"Hi there! Can you-" Something then occurred to him, "Do you work here?"

"In the observatory, yes."

"Wait, but Blathers said HE was the museum's only... staff... member..."

As if on cue, Blathers emerged from the aquarium soaking wet, and returned to his post. Twystar looked at Celeste, then at Blathers, then at Celeste again. He shrugged.

"Any idea where the café is?" he asked Celeste.

"It's in the basement. You really should try the Pearspresso." she answered.

"Nah. I'm here on business. I've got something that'll make that drink look like a sad cry for help." Twystar replied.

* * *

Down in the café, Celeste sipped a Pearspresso while Twystar negotiated a business deal with Brewster.

"And you say that Spice can flavor anything?" Brewster asked.

"Anything. Plus it has a few other uses! Pink spice is a great floor polish." Twystar handed him the bottle of pink spice.

After having tried the powder in a cup of coffee, he was quite impressed with the alien's offering.

"I'll take a month's supply. How can I contact you if I decide to become a regular buyer?"

"Here's a communicator with a direct line to our Mission Control." Twystar said, pulling a device out from under his helmet.

Annoyingly, the device's powers didn't like the fact that he had managed to carry an object under the Spore inventory system without carrying a single object in his hand, and forced it into his new 'Animal Crossing: Wild World' inventory, so he pulled it back out of the invisible pocket and handed it to Brewster. "Stupid glitches." A bit annoyed, he pulled it out of his inventory and handed it to Brewster. "They'll make the deal and figure out the exchange rate between Bells and Sporebucks."

* * *

Back in Yu and Ai's house, Twystar walked in with his interface back to default and a cup of Brewster's new 'Ca-pink-ccino' in his hand to find the two chibi humans almost done sorting out their furniture.

"Okay, checklist." Yu said. "Stove... Refrigerator... Table... Two chairs... Two beds... Two sinks... Toilet... Shower..."

"What about that computer in the corner?" Twystar asked.

"...why?" Ai said, a bit puzzled.

"Why not? Its a computer. You've got a calculator, a journal, an encyclopedia... the works!"

"Computer it is." Yu said, turning the machine back into a leaf and putting said leaf in his inventory. "Oh, right! Hey, would you happen to know where Oddworld is?"

"Well, the news about the Nexus is spreading pretty quickly, but I can't say I have." Twystar responded. "Why?"

"Something called the Grox is apparently going to attack them." Yu answered.

Twystar immediately choked on his drink a bit. "Did you say the Grox?!"

"You know them?" Ai asked.

"Of course I Groxing know them! They're the most hated and feared species in the galaxy I come from! There's a reason I just used their name as an expletive!"

Yu and Ai looked at each other in horror.

"You'd better get ready to bring your stuff, Twystar." Yu said. "Cause we're REALLY gonna need your help."

* * *

**Q: Wait, wasn't Twystar/Twyster in SPORE'd?**

A: Yes. OliveTwyster ran out of ideas for it and decided to merge the general concept with Animal Crossover.

**Q: Wait, Twystar can cheat? Isn't that a bit overpowered?**

A: It has its limits, and you'll find out what they are soon enough.

**Q: So if Ai and Yu are in the American version of _Animal Crossing: Wild World_... What happens when New Leaf comes out in 2013?**

A: We've already planned for exactly that (what, you didn't think we weren't gonna get the best Animal Crossing game so far, did you?). But that's for later.

**Q: Is Twystar an author avatar?**

A: Most probably. But you need not worry about author tracts or other such Mary Sue traits. In fact, Twystar is more supposed to represent our twist (har har) on the idea of the featureless protagonist.


	7. Meet the Nexplorers

Ai, Yu, Maximilian, Monica, Sam, Max and Twystar had all gathered in the Nexus directly between the Town Gates of Denburg and Palm Brinks.

"Hi there." Twystar said to everyone. "I guess I'll be joining the rest of you, since I know more about the Grox than anyone else you've met."

"Glad to have you." Maximilian said. "So, where do we head to first?"

That was when the RED Heavy came running in from the Denburg Town Gate. "Have any of you seen penguin man run through here?"

"Dedede?" Sam said. "No idea, we just got here."

"Say, you look like a handy guy to have around. Care to join whatever it is we're calling ourselves?" Twystar asked. "If that's okay with all of you."

Everyone just shrugged.

"I've got it!" Yu exclaimed suddenly. "The Nexus Explorers!"

"Huh. That's what I was- never mind." Twystar mumbled.

"Well?" Yu asked. "Unless someone has a better idea."

Everyone spoke simultaneously in approval, though the words were all garbled by the clashing voices.

"Okay. I will join your Nexus Explorers. But it'll cost you. I am mercenary, after all."

"Do you take Sporebucks?" Twystar said.

* * *

Once the Heavy had been hired, they went back to their conversation.

"So, as I said, where to?" Maximilian asked.

"We're fighting an army of alien rodent cyborgs that hate all biological life." Twystar explained. "First things first, we need weapons."

With those words, Maximilian weilded Grade Zero in one hand and Super Nova in the other, Monica unsheathed her sword, Yu and Ai took out their Golden Axes, and Sam & Max drew their guns.

"I don't think these are going to cut it." Twystar said, looking over the weapons. "We're fighting an army here. Ergo, we need an _armory_."

"Well what have you got?" Monica asked.

"Unfortunately... Nothing. I pilot a spaceship, that's about it. Although as I said, I have a mapping system that shows where game characters are in my head, thanks to the game I'm from." he explained, crossing his fingers behind his back.

"We need armory you say?" the Heavy said, "I get you armory. Follow me."

* * *

After a few minutes of searching, they found a room filled with tons of Cold War era electronic equipment.

"So where did you say the weapons were again?" asked Ai.

"Follow me." The heavy said, and entered a door at the back of the room. What lied on the other side made them all gasp.

A huge atrium, the left-hand side painted in the BLU color scheme and the right-hand side painted in the RED color scheme. In the atrium were dozens of doors, leading to various unopenable doors in the Team Fortress 2 maps.

"Woooooow!" Yu and Ai said simultaneously, amazed.

"And look at all the equipment!" Maximilian said itching to mess with the 1960s-era computer systems.

"Ehh... I've seen better." the other Max commented, "You should have seen the _evil machinations_ that Hugh Bliss had!"

"I'd have to agree on the 'having seen better'." Twystar said, "This place looks like something out of a classic Bond movie."

"What's a 'Bond movie'?" asked Monica.

"It's a series about this guy in a tuxedo who saves the world from evil geniuses." Twystar said.

"Why does he do that? On a regular basis I mean." Monica asked.

"It's his job. He's a- SPY!" Twystar suddenly flung his arm back and whacked the invisible BLU Spy in the face, the knife falling out of his hand as the cloaking wore off. "I love NPC-sensing radar."

The spy was obviously not happy. "Sacre bleu, by dose! Do bloke by dose!"

"Serves you right! What are you trying to pull, sneaking up on people to kill them like that?" Sam said, putting his hands on his hips.

"I dot do were wi- holb od." Everyone cringed as the BLU Spy cracked his nose back into place. "Now then. I assume you're not with ze purple bird?"

"You saw penguin man come though here?" the RED Heavy asked.

"And what if I did?" the BLU Spy asked.

Twystar sighed. "Do you take Sporebucks?"

"It was more of a pelican-looking thing, actually." the Spy said, rubbing his chin as he took the plastic tokens embedded with the "§" symbol in electronic lights.

Yu and Ai looked at each other. "Phyllis."

"Again?!" Maximilian said, "What is she up to?"

"Probably nothing. I mean come on, she's a mail clerk in a game about _living in a quirky town_." Twystar said. Yu and Ai just looked at him. "What? I had to talk to Pelly when I arrived in Denburg."

"So what about those weapons?" Sam asked.

The Heavy led them over to a solid steel door with a tumbler lock on the RED side of the atrium. He opened the door without problems, so it was apparently unlocked.

Inside was a utility elevator, with a sign labelled "Warehouse Service Elevator". They all got inside, and the Heavy pressed a big red button labelled "DOWN".

The elevator stopped at the bottom of the shaft, where another door awaited them, this time a set of blast doors with a keypad lock. Before anyone could approach it, a green light on the keypad turned on. The doors proceeded to open, revealing a large, dark area.

Then the lights turned on section by section, revealing a huge room filled with crates, cardboard boxes, barrels, treasure chests, pots and strange little red-and-white spheres. And for some reason a clock.

Lining the walls on the sides of this massive storage facility, were countless lockers.

"Hey, that's weird..." Twystar said, "My radar is giving me a destination marker..."

"Where did you get a radar device?" Maximillian asked.

"No, it's part of my interface- never mind. Give me a second, I'm going to check out the destination marker." Twystar then walked over to one of the lockers, and took a look at the small engraved nameplate on it. His eyes widened. "Everyone start looking for a locker with your name on it!"

"No need. I have just the thing." The Heavy said. Taking out an oddly modern-looking tablet-laptop hybrid device, he plugged it into the keypad on the side of the blast doors they were currently on.

Suddenly a computerized voice could be heard from the device. "Accessing... Incoming Transmission."

Twystar walked over and decided to take a closer look at the device. "Where did you get this?" He then tapped a button on the touch screen, opening a message from someone. "It's a message alright." he said, typing a message he hoped nobody else would see. _'Long time no see, Brian Spencer.'_

A message came back for him. _'Hello, Twystar. I thought the Heavy had this device.'_

_'He does. I happen to be working with the same group he is. I'll be seeing you later.'_ Twystar turned to the Heavy. "I see you've stumbled across 'Hacker Evolution Duality'. Looks like someone wants to talk to you."

* * *

With a couple words to their mysterious communique, the electronic locks on the lockers belonging to the Nexus Explorers opened, allowing them access to items they had thought lost forever.

"Look at all these photographs I never took!" Maximilian said excitedly.

"The snowman set!" Yu cheered, "Finally I have a Snowman TV!"

"Hey, it's that bottle of Banang we threw out!" Sam said.

"Better throw it out, Sam. I read somewhere that stuff has snail slime in it." Max warned.

"I didn't know you could read." Sam said skeptically.

After a few minutes of looking through the cool stuff, they found that - save for Maximilian and Monica - they had no additional weapons.

"Looks like we're out of luck..." Maximilian said, closing his locker.

"Not quite." the Heavy said. He opened a door in between the RED and BLU team member's lockers, and went inside. A few seconds later, he emerged carrying a large minigun.

"Woah!" Yu was amazed at the size of the weapon. It actually dwarfed him, it was so massive.

"This is Sasha. She weighs one hundred fifty kilograms and fires two hundred dollar custom-tooled cartridges at ten thousand rounds per minute. It costs four hundred thousand dollars to fire this weapon, for twelve seconds." the Heavy explained.

"Nice! Hey, did I ever tell you guys about Last Resort?" Maximilian asked.

"YOU had a Gatling gun?" Ai looked at him with her arms crossed.

"Three. I mounted two on the Ridepod. As for Last Resort, it wasn't as good as this monster of a gun, but let's see anyone else make a Gatling gun you can hold with one hand!"

"Now then..." the Heavy said, pointing to the open door labelled 'Surplus TF2 Items' he had gotten 'Sasha' from. "Who is ready to get weapons?"

* * *

Cut to the characters in the Nexus Explorers in a TF2 'Meet the Team'-style lineup. Yu is the Spy (in a ninja mask), Ai is the Pyro (holding an Axe), Maximilian is the Engineer, Monica is the Demoman (in Medieval mode), Sam is the Sniper, Max is the Scout, Twystar is the Medic, and the Heavy is... the Heavy.

MEET THE NEXUS EXPLORERS

* * *

**Q: When the hell did the Heavy meet Brian Spencer?**

A: No idea. It's not a very important plot point. Brian Spencer is a disembodied 'hacker' from the _Hacker Evolution_ series. Like it's spiritual predecessor _Uplink_, _HE_ is a game series where the player is a 'Hollywood Hacker', manipulating a faux-GUI to break into (in-context) servers and stuff in the same unrealistic manner as movies like _The Net_, _Swordfish_ and _Hackers_. As such, he has no physical form at all and will just be a method of giving some pushes to the plot when the characters need help finding things in the Nexus.

**Q: When the hell did _Twystar_ meet Brian Spencer?**

A: Oh, you'll see soon enough. We will say that Twystar knows more about the fact that they're in video games than he's letting on.


	8. The Great Gaming Garage

The Nexus Explorers had gathered everything they thought they would need for the expedition. Until they spotted something on the way out...

"Hey, what's that?" Yu said on the way out, pointing to a massive door labeled "Garage". A few railroad tracks also lead out from adjacent doors along bridges overhead and through tunnels on the opposite wall, including a monorail and a couple varieties of maglev.

* * *

**WARNING! CHARACTER DATA ACCESS DETECTED.**  
**ACCESSING DISKS...**

** SEARCHING FOR PROGRAMS...**  
**ALERT: NEW PROGRAM(S) FOUND**

** DECRYPTING DATA...**

** FILE 38 DECRYPTED: "GRAND THEFT AUTO IV"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 39 DECRYPTED: "MARIO KART WII"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 40 DECRYPTED: "SONIC & SEGA ALL-STARS RACING"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 41 DECRYPTED: "CRUISIN' USA"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 42 DECRYPTED: "POKÉMON SOULSILVER"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 43 DECRYPTED: "POKÉMON WHITE"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 44 DECRYPTED: "POKÉMON BLACK"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 45 DECRYPTED: "POKÉMON BLACK 2"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 46 DECRYPTED: "SLY COOPER AND THE THEVIOUS RACOONUS"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 47 DECRYPTED: "SLY 2: BAND OF THIEVES"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 48 DECRYPTED: "SLY 3: HONOR AMONG THIEVES"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 49 DECRYPTED: "VICTORY: THE AGE OF RACING"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** NETWORKING...**  
**NETWORK ESTABLISHED**

** REBOOTING SIMULATION**

* * *

As if on cue, a green light beeped on the keypad for the huge main door, and it began sliding upwards slowly. The contents were visible far before it reached the top however.

"My Spode..." Twystar said, "It's full of cars!"

Sure enough, hundreds of vehicles were parked in the hangar, and there was STILL space for thousands more.

And the variety! All sorts of ordinary-looking cars with a "LIBERTY CITY" license plate, go karts and pint-size themed race cars, spaceships with a logo of a fox with wings, 1990s exotic sports cars, semi trucks carrying shipping containers, a blue van with flame decals on it... and a few familiar faces. Er, grills.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Sam said pointing at a black and white DeSoto with a familiar emblem on the side. "How'd our DeSoto get here?"

"But Sam, I thought it had the Presidential seal on it ever since I got elected!" Max noticed.

"That IS strange..."

"Hey, um, isn't that the DeSoto over there too? And it has a red maple leaf on it!" Twystar added. "And see those steam-powered tanks over there? The Gabywr Empire created those things!"

Maximilian and Monica weren't listening, having found their own familiar vehicle. "The Ixion!" Maximilian said, "But we haven't seen it since 'Emperor Griffon' was defeated!"

"I think we know where vehicles go when they aren't accessible at the end of a game..." Yu said, looking at Kapp'n's taxi.

"Hey, I just thought of something!" Twystar annonced, "If all of the items and vehicles that were missing at the end of our games get stowed away here... What happens to dead characters?!"

"There is place for that too." said the Heavy.

* * *

Meanwhile, Phyllis stood in the doorway to a room, a sign above the entryway on the outside labelling it "Character Spawns".

"Well, well, well... What have we here?" she said, with a mischevious grin on her face. Looking over a control panel, she slammed a button labelled 'Defeated Final Boss Revival - For Emergency Game Reset ONLY!'

Phyllis chuckled evilly and ran off, sounding more insane by the minute...

* * *

**WARNING! CHARACTER DATA ACCESS DETECTED.**  
**ACCESSING DISKS...**

** SEARCHING FOR PROGRAMS...**  
**ALERT: NEW PROGRAM(S) FOUND**

** DECRYPTING DATA...**

** FILE 50 DECRYPTED: "BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE GAME - EPISODE 1: IT'S ABOUT TIME"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 51 DECRYPTED: "BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE GAME - EPISODE 2: GET TANNEN!"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 52 DECRYPTED: "BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE GAME - EPISODE 3: CITIZEN BROWN"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 53 DECRYPTED: "BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE GAME - EPISODE 4: DOUBLE VISIONS"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 54 DECRYPTED: "BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE GAME - EPISODE 5: OUTATIME"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** NETWORKING...**  
**NETWORK ESTABLISHED**

** REBOOTING SIMULATION**

* * *

"What's this about a place for dead characters?" Maximillian asked. "Maybe we can bring back Sirus!"

Suddenly a burst of lightning occured, and a car skidded to a halt shortly before it would have plowed into them. Specifically, a DeLorean DMC-12 that had been extensively modified with various cyberpunk-looking gadgetry.

"What in the name of Hugh Bliss is that?!" Sam exclaimed.

"I think... it's a time machine." Twystar said, looking through the cloud of smoke emitted from the vehicle.

Two figures stepped out of the vehicle, a bit confused-looking.

"I have to say I'm baffled, Marty! Every time we try to use the Flux Capacitor, we just end up back where we started!" Doc Brown said as he stepped out of the gull-wing doors. "By all means, it should be functioning properly..."

"Hey, Doc... these guys weren't here when we left... When exactly have we been travelling to and from?" Marty said looking at the Nexus Explorers. Max waved 'hi' to them as the others just stared in shock.

"Wait a minute..." Maximillian started pondering, "How does time travel work for video game characters? If it was all just game mechanics and storyline aspects, then that would mean..."

"That time travel is actually impossible now? Yeah, I wasn't going to say anything but... well..." Twystar motioned towards the Ixion and the time elevator from Sam & Max's games. "They're pretty much useless."

"Useless?!" Doc Brown sputtered, "You mean to tell me I spent years of work, millions of dollars and made a shady deal with Libyan terrorists for-"

"A pimpèd out ride?" Yu suggested.

"A great showpiece for a sci-fi convention?" Twystar continued.

"A flying, nuclear-powered car?" Maximillian said, already in the driver's seat.

Monica quickly berated him. "Max!"

A short pause occured.

"The OTHER Max, you silly rabbit." Monica corrected everyone.

"Trix is for kids." Ai muttered snarkily.

"Don't you think you should ask before looking at people's-" Monica began to say, "Maximillian?"

"...and if it went beyond 88 miles per hour, you would have seen some serious shit!" Doc Brown said, already explaining the features to a fellow inventor.

"So... where exactly did all these other cars come from? Besides the ones with the obvious 'LIBERTY CITY' plates, I mean." Ai asked. "And how come there are ordinary-looking cars with weird characters on their license plates and a green crystal manufacturer's logo?"

* * *

**WARNING! CHARACTER DATA ACCESS DETECTED.**  
**ACCESSING DISKS...**

** SEARCHING FOR PROGRAMS...**  
**ALERT: NEW PROGRAM(S) FOUND**

** DECRYPTING DATA...**

** FILE 55 DECRYPTED: "THE SIMS 3 + EXPANSION PACKS + STUFF PACKS + STORE CONTENT" BATCH CONTENT FILE**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** NETWORKING...**  
**NETWORK ESTABLISHED**

** REBOOTING SIMULATION**

* * *

"My universal translator says that's in Simlish." Twystar said. "Just random letters and numbers, but they ARE license plates."

"You have a universal translator?!" Yu said in disbelief.

"Well how do you think I'm speaking whatever language YOU speak? My native language is Awywa."

"You... don't speak English?" Marty asked them.

"You're a time traveller. Haven't you ever travelled back far enough that your language didn't exist yet?" Twystar responded.

"Not really, no." Marty said nonchalantly.

"I believe we have appointment with Respawn Room." the RED Heavy interjected.

"Ah, right. Monica, is Maximillian going to be much longer?" Yu asked her.

"He shouldn't be. When we were at Luna Labs we only stuck around for a few minutes." Monica replied, remembering their trip to the high-tech facility.

* * *

As they approached the respawn room, having left Doc and Marty in the 'Great Gaming Garage' as it was now being called, they noticed traces of coolant fluid left behind by footsteps.

The RED Heavy put his finger to his lips in a 'stay quiet' gesture. "Stay behind me..." he whispered. He changed his weapon loadout and revved up the silent 'Tomislav' gun.

As they edged forward, cryogenic vapors rose from dozens of the thousands of chambers in the Respawn Room. Everything was dead quiet.

A soft patting of feet then began to be heard coming from within the mist. The Heavy took aim at the silhouette of the sound's source as it was about to emerge.

"Wait! Don't shoot! I come in peace!" the figure said. From the clouds of liquid nitrogen, a blue humanoid appeared, it's lips sewn together by strings that seemed to have loosened, three digits on each hand. Despite the yellow bloodshot eyes, the entity looked sad rather than malicious, as if it had seen far too much despair for its body to handle.

"I still don't trust him." the RED Heavy said. "Boss Revival button has been pushed, da?"

"Maybe so, but I'm supposed to be an ambassador. Even if I do suck at it." Twystar said. "I'll handle this. Greetings! I'm Captain Twystar of the Gabywr Empire, and these are the Nexus Explorers. I'm assisting them in trying to find a certain location. But for now, who are you?"

"My name is Abe. And my world needs help." he said, looking glum.

* * *

**WARNING! CHARACTER DATA ACCESS DETECTED.**

** ACCESSING DISKS...**

** SEARCHING FOR PROGRAMS...**  
**ALERT: NEW PROGRAM(S) FOUND**

** DECRYPTING DATA...**

** FILE 56 DECRYPTED: "ODDWORLD: ABE'S ODDYSEE"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 57 DECRYPTED: "ODDWORLD: ABE'S EXODDUS"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 58 DECRYPTED: "ODDWORLD: MUNCH'S ODDYSEE"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 59 DECRYPTED: "ODDWORLD: STRANGER'S WRATH"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** NETWORKING...**  
**NETWORK ESTABLISHED**

** REBOOTING SIMULATION**

* * *

"I hate to say it but you're going to have to get in line. Some place called Oddworld is-"

"That's just it! I'm _from_ Oddworld!"

"Oh. Uh... Sorry we took so long, then? We kind of had no idea where to start looking. So I guess you want someone to help get rid of the Grox?"

"The Grox? I was going to ask for help against the various huge unrestricted corporations who are ravaging our natural resources." Abe explained. "It seems like we get rid of one batch and another set just takes their place!"

"Unrestricted? You don't have a government or something?"

"My people, the Mudokons, are tribal. We don't have the technology or military strength to take them on."

"And your homeland is being strip-mined or polluted or whatever by other, more technologically inclined Mudokons?"

"No, we aren't the only species on Oddworld by far. Last time it was the Glukkons who had enslaved us and abused the land. Now we are contending with small creatures who have replaced parts of their bodies with machinery-"

"Were they orange and had one beady eye and one red "mechanical" eye?"

"That's them!"

"That's no mere megacorp. You're dealing with the Grox, the biggest menace to all non-Grox life in my home galaxy. Now I don't know if those Glukkon guys did anything worse than killing people, but I can tell you right now that the Grox kill anything that doesn't start with 'G' and end in 'rox' on sight."

"But what about the factories they were polluting the air with?" Abe asked.

"Terraforming measures. They're pumping out chemicals to modify the atmosphere. Stinks, doesn't it? Literally I mean."

"Um, don't we have a planet to save then?" Ai reminded Twystar. "Lead the way, Abe."

"Follow me then." the Mudokon said, heading off down a hallway.

As they left, Phyllis peered down at them from through the grating inside an overhead ventilation shaft.

"Fools. You'll never see it coming..." She started to cackle evilly, then hit her head on the top of the vent shaft. "Ow!"

"Hey, did you hear something?" Monica asked.

Yu, Ai, Maximillian, Sam, Max and the RED Heavy just shrugged.

* * *

**Q: Wait, so if Phyllis has an evil plan, what's going on with Oddworld?**

A: Oddworld comes first, then once that's over with, Phyllis's shitstorm is going to hit the fan.


	9. Commander 'n' Chief

It seemed that since the last episode, somehow, Abe and Twystar had managed to get separated from the group.

"You have no idea where we're going do you?" Twystar complained.

"Well... No." Abe slumped. "I didn't think this place was so big!"

Twystar pictured a map of the area in his mind, exactly as it would appear to a player of _Spore: Galactic Adventures_. "Great. The others are hundreds of Height Units away from us now. At this rate it'll take a one-in-a-million chance for anything to get us to Oddworld!"

* * *

**WARNING! CHARACTER DATA ACCESS DETECTED.**  
**ACCESSING DISKS...**

** SEARCHING FOR PROGRAMS...**  
**ALERT: NEW PROGRAM(S) FOUND**

** DECRYPTING DATA...**

** FILE 60 DECRYPTED: "MASS EFFECT"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 61 DECRYPTED: "MASS EFFECT 2"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** FILE 62 DECRYPTED: "HALO"**  
**ATTEMPTING INTEGRATION...**  
**INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL**

** NETWORKING...**  
**NETWORK ESTABLISHED**

** REBOOTING SIMULATION**

* * *

Meanwhile, inside a small spaceship, a humanoid entity clad entirely in green armor that revealed nothing of his actual identity was asleep in the pilot's chair, an empty glass bottle loosely held in his left hand.

A female voice broke the silence in the ship. "Chief. Attention, Chief. Chief?" There was a 15 second pause, and then a loud, shrill beeping noise was played through the earphones in the helmet.

"Guh, what the he- Cortana, what's the big idea!" Master Chief shouted over the sound of the alarm clock.

"Do you realize how long you've been asleep?" the suit's AI asked him.

"12, maybe 15 hours?"

"11 years, 2 months, 11 days, 14 hours. I know, I counted."

"That's some BS right there. There's no way we've been floating in space for that long and I'm still alive."

"Maybe so, but I suggest you at least find a way to fix my internal clock if that's the case. It's vital to many of my internal functions."

"Screw that, I'm getting another drink." And with that he walked over to the minibar and tried to open the electronic lock. However, it was no longer functioning. "What the-"

"I'm patching into the ship's systems now..." Cortana said. "It appears we're running on emergency power. The external solar panels are not functioning, most likely due to their surfaces being blocked."

"Then it looks like I'm going for a spacewalk." Master Chief said, looking at the empty bottle he left on the pilot's seat.

"I'll open the door for you then." Cortana said.

The airlock opened, and Chief stepped inside, the doors closing behind him in short order. The airlock depressurized and prepared to open. But what was on the other side was NOT the depths of space.

"Cortana? I don't think we're in Kansas anymore..."

* * *

"Well that's just great! We're going in circles!" Twystar groaned. "We're in the Garage again, and the others are even further away."

Suddenly a "pshooo" noise was heard as an airlock on a parked spacecraft opened, and a silhouetted figure stepped out of the doorway. "That's the last time I sleep on the job... Where are we?" Master Chief asked.

"Wherever it is, I'm not receiving any transmissions on any frequencies." Cortana responded, bringing up information on Chief's HUD. "Wait, hold on! I'm picking up on something... It appears to be an unknown alien tongue."

"That's untranslated Awywa." Twystar said, standing above them on top of the ship. "You know, if you wanted to talk, you could have just said it to my face where my translator would fix any language barriers."

"Cortana, what the hell is that thing?" Chief asked, astounded.

"A new alien lifeform. And judging from what it just said, it has a translation system, so it understands everything we're saying."

"Good, maybe it knows where we are."

"Excuse me, 'It' has a name!"

"I'm a soldier. I don't usually need to ask the names of the aliens I encounter. But go ahead and introduce yourself."

"Well, I'd go through the whole bit about me being a space captain and ambassador to the multiverse on behalf of my people yadda-yadda, but I think I've done that enough times lately. I'm Captain Twystar, and my people are known as the Gabywr."

"Master Chief. Nice to meet you. And we're on your homeworld?"

"It's... not quite that simple."

* * *

"A video game?! I've been fighting for the freedom of humanity and it was all just a bunch of digital paintball matches for college frat boys and bratty 12-year-olds who scream into the microphone?!" Master Chief was, needless to say, absolutely appalled.

"Tell me about it. My entire galaxy was a plaything for some godlike being who created whatever he or she felt like with a 3D modeling program."

"So who's your buddy here?" Master Chief asked, pointing at Abe.

"Oh, him? I'm supposed to be saving his homeworld as part of a larger team effort, but the rest of the group disappeared somewhere into the Nexus and we can't find them anywhere." Twystar explained. "But I'll let him tell you who and what he is."

"My people, the Mudokons, were once enslaved by the race known as the Glukkons. They forced us to work in big, unsafe factories which ravaged the surrounding landscape. This was the way things worked for many years." Abe said somberly. "I had worked in the RuptureFarms meat packing plant most of my life. Their best selling product had always been Meech Munchies, and in their greedy quest they drove them to extinction. In a desperate attempt to keep their Moolah in order, they decided to use my people as the main ingredient in their newest product."

"Ew." Master Chief said. "The Glukkons would actually eat you? You don't look very appetizing."

"I'll... take that as a compliment?" he said nervously. "The poor ones, yes. The rich ones controlled the factories." Abe continued. "I managed to escape, meet with a rebel group in the wilderness, and destroy RuptureFarms and then the other factories before they could actually go though with the plan. A few years after that, I helped a Gabbit named Munch rescue his species from extinction at the hands of the Vykkers, a species that has reason to hate the Gabbits, and a few wealthy Glukkons who were bidding on the last batch of Gabbit eggs. Then there was peace for the last 10 years, until one day the creatures that Twystar calls the Grox arrived and began to kill off all life on Oddworld."

"Yeah, they kind of hate all life except other Grox. And even then they're pretty irritable." Twystar summarized.

"So would either of you happen to know a way back to Earth?" Master Chief asked.

"Depends on what you mean by 'Earth'." Twystar explained. "There's the anime-ish Earth-like locale of _Animal Crossing: Wild World_'s Denburg, the name's-the-same 'Earth' of _Dark Cloud 2_, the slightly cartoon-y Earth of _Sam & Max_, the generally Earth-bound 'Inventory' mini-hub..."

"What's a mini-hub?" Abe asked, a bit confused.

"It's what I'm calling any place that connects to multiple games but is a game itself, such as _Poker Night in the Inventory_, or _Super Smash Bros. Melee_, since nobody has a word for that yet." Twystar proudly said, having made up the word on the spot.

"You were saying about Earth?" Chief reminded.

"Let's see, there's Earth in _Team Fortress 2_... Oh! And there's a planet called Earth, and shaped similarly to the real thing, in the galaxy I come from."

"And what about whatever game I'm from?"

"Halo? I don't think Earth makes an appearance, at least not in the first game."

"Then what's the closest out of the ones you listed?"

"Trust me, none of those are ANYTHING like what you remember Earth being like. That last one is missing most of the lifeforms, including humanity."

"Well that's great. You hear that, Cortana? We're homeless."

"Who is Cortana?" Abe asked.

"The AI in my suit. MJOLNIR armor is standard issue for Spartans, and it was necessary to transfer her from the Pillar of Autumn's computer network into the neural implant in my helmet. And now we're stuck together."

"Spartans?" Twystar said. "I don't know much about Earth, but I'm pretty sure the Spartans never had space travel."

"Actually it's a technical term. I'm a bio-engineered super-soldier, created with modified human DNA."

"Gene splicing?! That's playing god right there! Even the Grox don't mess with the Creature Creator!"

"The Creature Creator?"

"Oh, right. I guess that's game-specific." Twystar realized. "So you're looking for home? Why not just go back to the Halo?"

"It's gone. We blew it up to destroy the Flood infestation there. And even if we hadn't, our ship's out of power."

"Oh, that's because it's a vehicle. And because there's not enough light in this place. Go through those doors, then through the other blast doors in the central column-looking thing, and take the elevator in there up to the top. Cross the BLU and RED atrium and exit though the doors opposite your entry. That's the Nexus' main corridor. After that you're on your own, but one of the doors in that corridor should lead to somewhere in _Halo_, especially if it looks familiar to you."

"Thanks, I'll be on my way then. Pleasure meeting you two."

"No problem. Hey, Abe, I think I've got an idea how to contact the others."

"What do you have in mind?" Abe asked.

"We're going for a ride in my UFO!" Twystar said, grinning. "I'm going to try and call Maximilian's Help Receiver from the cockpit."

* * *

Master Chief had reached the main corridor and was looking at the many, many doors on the walls all throughout the area.

"Cortana, do any of these doors match your recordings?" Master Chief asked the AI.

"Nothing yet." Cortana responded in her computerized voice.

"Maybe if I strafe I can do this match-up process faster..." Chief said, stepping sideways as fast as he could go.

This turned out to be a relatively bad idea. As he was looking at each door in rapid succession, he strafed right into someone, and they both fell to the floor.

"Hey! Watch where you're going, would you?" complained the woman he had run into as they got up and dusted themselves off.

The woman in question was wearing black high-tech armor, though not as extensive as Master Chief's. The right arm of her suit had a red patch, and 'N7' was printed in white on the torso above her right breast. She reached down and picked up a futuristic gun labeled 'JM8' that she had dropped in the collision.

"Yeah, my bad. I was trying to find a door back to my home. Or at least the closest I'm going to get." Master Chief apologized. "I'm Master Chief, by the way."

"Chief? That's cute. Commander Shepard at your service," she answered.

"Wait, you're a Commander?"

"Commander of the SSV Normandy, yes."

"Never heard of it."

"This is the Nexus. There's multiple universes involved, apparently."

"Point taken."

Suddenly an explosion ripped through a nearby door, and an army of robotic BLU and Gray mercenaries began pouring out of the opening.

"What in the name of-" Master Chief said, before his voice was drowned out by gunshots.

Commander Shepard started firing upon the robots with her shotgun. Master Chief, however, was conspicuously unarmed at the moment.

"Here, take this!" Shepard said as she tossed him a small pistol.

They then proceeded to kick Robo-Mercenary butt.

_(You just can't choreograph fight scenes, can you?)_

_(Quiet, you.)_

Atop a pile of busted robots, the two space marine-type protagonists stood back to back in badass poses.

"And you're..." Master Chief trailed off, then started another sentence. "Damn. Nothing's better than a woman who can kick ass beside you!"

"Chief!" Cortana said in an uncharacteristically jealous manner, with the external speakers on.

"I stand by what I said." Master Chief defended.

"Who was that?" Shepard asked.

"Cortana, the AI in my armor." Chief explained. "Standard stuff where I come from."

"I assume not carrying a weapon is as well?"

"No, I just got caught unarmed. Thanks for the gun."

"Don't mention it."

"Want to help me look for a door to my home universe?"

"I suppose I have nothing better to do, so long as you help me look for the Normandy in the process."

"Actually..." Chief put a hand to his chin. "I know exactly where that ship might be. Follow me."

* * *

**Q: Why'd you use the female version of Commander Shepard?**

A: We figured it'd be a nice twist. Evidently, we were right.

**Q: Do you guys ship Femshep and Master Chief?**

A: Maybe. *shifty eyes*


End file.
